


(Un)Spoken

by Val Mora (valmora)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Five-times fic, Kalmar Union, M/M, Soviet Union collapse, Sweden made like a tree and pined, Thirty Years' War, time period: all over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-28
Updated: 2010-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Sweden didn't say "I love you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Un)Spoken

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [this prompt](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/10530.html?thread=15920930#t15920930) at the kink meme [here](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/10530.html?thread=15957282#t15957282), and kindexed [here](http://community.livejournal.com/hetalia_kindex/986409.html).

Sweden falls in the lake. It’s not his fault, exactly: the ice is too thin to hold him even though it would have held him last year, or the year before that – he must be getting bigger.

The water gets in his clothes, and he thinks a fish nibbles on his fingers, and by the time he’s crawled out he’s shivering and his fingers and toes are numb and all he wants to do is curl up to stay warm.

But he knows what cold is like, so he forces himself to keep going, to walk the half-mile to their house, even though the snow is up to mid-calf on him.

Most of the way there one of the servants sees him, picks him up and carries him – this isn’t right; he’s a Nation, he shouldn’t need to be carried into his own house! – inside. And deposits him in front of the door to his rooms. In front of Finland – Sweden likes calling him that, even though his bosses want him to use _Österland_ – who is curled up around one of the hunting-pups, petting it.

“I’m home,” Sweden says, dripping and shivering, feeling a bit like the puppy only wetter.

Finland moves to the side to let him in, so that he can change.

Sweden goes inside and changes his clothes, and when he is done he looks outside. Finland is still playing with the puppy, captivated. He pets its head, scratches its ears, hums to it softly. Sweden steps out from the door, and Finland steps aside, then looks at him.

“Your hair’s still wet,” Finland says, reaching to brush a lock out of Sweden’s eyes. His hand lingers behind Sweden’s ear, and feeling it Sweden wants to shiver, like the puppy. He likes that touch, warm and gentle.

“I’m fine,” he says, and then, belatedly, “Thanks.”

 

 

 

In their new house, after leaving Denmark’s, they sleep side-by-side for warmth. Finland is so warm, his hair soft, his breath light against Sweden’s throat when they are wrapped around each other.

Sweden is used to people sleeping together for warmth, but even after they become able to heat their room well enough that they don’t need to he stays close. They’re supposed to, aren’t they? They’re united, one country. Married, even if the Pope who gave Finland to him in that edict never could have known that Finland wasn’t a woman. Married couples are supposed to sleep together.

And they’re a good match, the two of them. Geographically close, with the stepping-stones of islands between them, similar climates…and he knows he thinks Finland pleasant to be around. Their house runs smoothly together, the two of them cooperating so well.

Sweden likes Finland’s competence, his cooperation. His warmth in the bed. Is this what it means, to learn to love one’s wife? To be glad to have a competent partner to run one’s house? It must be. He supposes that means he loves Finland.

He traces the words with his lips in Finland’s hair, like a kiss, like a promise.

 

 

 

 

He supposes, some decades later, that he was wrong. He is fresh from the Thirty Years’ War, flush with his own newfound maturity. And watching Finland, grown now with him, the two of them physically perhaps seventeen, he feels blood roar in his veins, desire shorten his breath, heat in his loins.

He never desired the camp women who followed them into war. Instead, in the wake of battles won, he touched himself and thought of Finland’s wide-eyed open friendliness in peace, and his strength in battle, and that was enough, enough –

He stopped himself from crying out Finland’s name, barely, and when Finland came to help him dress for battle in the morning he almost told him, _Join me in my bed tonight._

Finland is a man, as Sweden is. Is Sweden then to deny himself his own marital rights, to stop himself committing sodomy? No; there are other acts that can pass between them, to prevent that defilement.

He will have his marriage bed consummated; he will have Finland. He has loved Finland _properly_ – not a child’s silly affection like before – and faithfully for all these years of war, and will soon lie with him as a married couple should.

 

 

 

And yet faced with Finland’s smile, and his confusion whenever Sweden tries to make plain his desire, Sweden can do nothing. Or – he could. He could force him, invade his space. But to know that he had to force his own wife to do what should have been his right and pleasure as husband, that would be humiliating. And so he does not, and does not, and his ardor cools into something made-soft and hungry. He lies awake in bed beside Finland, too afraid to touch, hot and cold by turns and the pit of his stomach empty-dark with desire as he listens to Finland breathe. The people and lands Finland represents are a part of Sweden’s country, but Finland is no part of him except in name.

Until one day Finland sings to him a tune that he heard from one of the servant-girls, about a lord’s wife, fallen in love with a common tailor, who ran away to be with her lover. Finland sighs, and says it’s sweet, and Sweden chokes on bitterness and asks “’n her husband?”

“What about him?”

“He gave her his house and his bed and the keys to the storehouses. Ain’t that love, too?”

And Finland’s hand fell to the ring of keys on his hip, worn for long centuries, and then to his heart.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he says. “It is a little sad, then, I suppose.”

Sweden nods and walks away. But in the night-shadows of their bed, Finland reaches to touch his cheek, and whispers, “Sweden, you sew too well for me to want to run away.”

Sweden wants to smile, but it’s too hard, and his hands tremble as he reaches to touch the corners of Finland’s eyes, the softness of his lips.

 

 

 

Finland’s cold is sudden – Sweden had known, of course, the extent of his dependence on the Soviet Union. But to see Finland wrapped up in blankets, surrounded by a pile of handkerchiefs – that is worrisome.

He brought over some fish stew because he thought it might be appreciated, between Finland’s fever and his own desire to improve their relations. But the three provinces at the door glared at him and called for Åland, who asked, “You want to see him?”

“If'n he wants t' see me,” Sweden said, while Åland took the container of stew from him.

Åland shrugged minutely. “He wouldn’t admit it if he did, but don’t let that stop you.” He stepped aside to let Sweden in, and so Sweden came inside, shed his boots, padded up the stairs to Finland’s room.

Where he is kneeling beside the bed, now, watching Finland, who is buried beneath a small mountain of blankets in all sorts of colors, quilted and knitted. His cheeks are flushed pink, his eyes bright with fever, and there is a glass of water by the side of the bed.

He wants to touch Finland’s forehead, check his temperature for himself, but they are no longer married and haven’t been for so, so long. He isn’t sure how well he knows Finland, anymore.

“Sweden?” Finland asks in his own language. His voice is raw, and cracks in the middle of the word.

Sweden nods: he understands enough Finnish to get by, but doesn’t speak it well at all. “Broughtcha soup,” he says carefully, in his own language. “For when you're hungry again.”

“Mm,” Finland sighs, stretching beneath the blankets and shivering a little as he does. “I’m too tired. I’m sorry.” Still speaking Finnish.

“I know.” Sweden tucks the blankets back under Finland’s chin, covering his neck. Finland closes his eyes, like he wants to try to sleep again. Sweden waits, hoping he will. Marvels at the curve of Finland’s cheek, the corner of his jaw, the depth of his own happiness at sitting here at the bedside of a sick former lover. Not former love, never that; he never stopped loving Finland. He doesn’t think Finland feels the same.

But maybe – maybe someday things will be less tense. He kisses the tips of his fingers and brushes a lock of hair away from Finland’s eyes. He does not say _I love you_ because Finland would not accept it even if he felt the same, and that he is asleep is no excuse. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, or that he doesn’t whisper it anyway, looking back from the door.  



End file.
